Headwater Summit, Sept. 15-17
Local Conference Begins with Author David James Duncan
Local author David James Duncan will speak about what you can do about climate change in his keynote address for the free two-day Headwaters Summit in Missoula, hosted by the Clark Fork Coalition, Western Progress and the National Wildlife Federation.
Duncan's talk will be (did I mention that it will be free?) Monday, Sept. 15 at 7 p.m. at the University Theater at the University of Montana campus. Afterward, the Clark Fork Coalition will hold a cocktail reception at its office, 140 S. 4th St. W. (The nonprofit, in my experience, does a great job hosting parties.)
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Missoula Hosts Workshop on Cleaning, Using Brownfields
A workshop on the cleanup and reuse of brownfields will be held today, Thursday, Sept. 4, at the Missoula City Council Chambers at 140 W. Pine St. and, in the afternoon, at the Missoula County Courthouse less than a block away at 200 W. Broadway, rooms 201 and 374.
Anyone interested is welcome to attend, including local officials, developers, landowners, bankers, lenders, community leaders, attorneys and consultants as well as the general public or anyone who fits some, all or none of the labels mentioned above. (Registration is $25 and can be done online or in person at 8 a.m. at the Council Chambers.)
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paperboard blues
Workers Hope to Rescue Missoula’s Paper Mill
An enterprising young millworker and his union cohorts have a plan to save Missoula's Smurfit-Stone paperboard mill.
The millworker is 27-year-old Roy Houseman.
"It's a serious concern," Houseman said. "But I'm going to do my damnedest to make sure it doesn't happen."
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“Low Flows, Hot Trout"
Report Details Climate Change in Clark Fork Watershed
A new report by the Missoula-based nonprofit Clark Fork Coalition provides a comprehensive view of how global climate change has affected - and will likely affect - western Montana and north Idaho.
"We view this as a starting point for discussion and a motivator for action," said Clark Fork Coalition director Karen Knudsen. Temperatures in the report's coverage area increased, on average by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 50 years and may well continue to warm, over the next 100 years, by another 5.4 degrees.
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From the new west blog: Western Tanager Migration
Stop and Enjoy Western Birds
As an unofficial birdwatcher – the kind who doesn’t carry a little notebook and camera while tramping through woods – I sometimes get a geeky thrill out of the visitors to my backyard bird feeders.
Last week a neon-yellow and red Western Tanager stopped by for thistle seed. Out on a dogwalk, more of them sang in the trees along the Boise river. Zing! went the strings of my bird-lovers heart.
This morning, the Idaho Statesman’s outdoor writer Pete Zimowsky informs us that the tanagers are migrating, and other Rocky Mountain western states are enjoying the migration, too.
I thought it was just my optimist's mind imagining a dramatic increase in bird life along the streams and in the trees of my riverfront neighborhood, but Zimo says it's everywhere. We are awakened every morning now by birdsong, and instead of the usual two or three chirpers, there are dozens, singing and trilling and calling and scolding.
Keep your eyes open for the Tanagers, not to mention the state bird of Montana and Oregon, the yellow Western Meadowlark, Idaho’s Mountain Bluebird, and Colorado’s Lark Bunting.
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Idaho Politics: Senate
Craig, Crapo Critical of Climate Security Act
Idaho Republican Senators Larry Craig and Mike Crapo both had something to say today about the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, on which the Senate voted to continue debate.
Who Cares About Global Warming Anyway?
by: Senator Larry Craig
If you remember Al Gore’s Oscar-winning movie and his visit to Boise, you might be shocked to learn how the Democrat-led Congress actually handled an issue some say is the most important crisis of our time. You may not even have known this debate was going on, considering how disorganized, brief and superficial the debate was.
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Water, Wind and Climate Change
Energy Future of the West: Half Empty or Half Full?
Colorado House Majority Leader Alice Madden put up a slide of Lake Mead with the rhetorical question: Half empty or half full?
Madden’s immediate subject at the University of Colorado’s Natural Resource Law Center’s Annual Summer Conference was water, but the question echoed around a wide variety of subjects: energy, climate, renewable resources.
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Guest review: Idaho Green Expo
Green Expo Should Be Permanent Boise Event
With the Saturday Market and the First Annual Green Expo all being held on Saturday May 17, it was hard to find a parking spot downtown, let alone maneuver through the crowds. The warm and sunny weather beckoned Boiseans to come out and play, and they did – by the thousands.
Boise is beginning to look like a real Metropolis, with people from all over the world at the Expo and many languages being spoken.
Despite the heat, the crowds and the general commotion, people were happy. The atmosphere was festive and chatty, all with one shared interest to learn more about choosing a more environmentally responsible way to live.
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"Where Green is Another Shade of Red, White and Blue"
Idaho Green Expo is This Weekend
Organizers of the first annual Idaho Green Expo are putting on quite a show this weekend, with a downtown Boise festival promoting green thinking, living, technology and materials.
But it’s no stodgy enviro-lecture. The Boise Center on the Grove is the setting for this weekend’s event, with over 150 exhibitors showcasing their green products and services. There will be seminars, demonstrations, speakers, art displays, things for kids to do, live music, and sales of local and organic food.
And with the nice weather predicted, it’s a great place to take the family on the first warm outing of spring.
Saturday, May 17th : 9:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Sunday, May 18th : 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Boise Centre on the Grove –
FREE admission
Valet bicycle parking
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From The New West Blog
The WUI and The Western Fire Season
Laura Zuckerman has a pretty comprehensive story today for Reuters that looks at the overall outlook of this summer's Western fire season, with a primer on how more homes in the Wildland Urban Interface (know as the WUI) and the effects of global warming are changing the regional and national, approach to firefighting.
That's not really news to most of us in the West who have watched tactics evolve first from the warfare-like 10 a.m. rule to a realization in the 60s and 70s that fires are natural and in some cases, should be managed, not suppressed. Now though, fire managers stuck trying to balance managing fires for natural benefit and protecting property (and in some cases lives) as more and more homes creep closer to the wildland interface. Throw global warming into the mix and you're also weighing which fires are natural and beneficial to the ecosystem, and which can turn into catastrophic ones that can actually do more harm than good -- in the remote wildlands or in the interface.
Oh, and then there's the question of how to fund all of this.
Zuckerman's story doesn't fully address all the issues hanging out there, but it does raise some of the more important ones and gives some good fodder to think about and discuss as we head into another fire season.
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